Address by Edwin Huizing at the City Maker session organised by Hivos during the SIX Wayfinder conference on social innovation in London on 16 and 17 February. Today we celebrate the social innovation field’s tenth birthday. To our mind this should start with celebrating the ingenuity and inspiration of people to face power in creative ways. […]
Overcoming poor representation and gender stereotypes Hivos WE4L Lebanon Partner Maharat Foundation’s report following its gendered-based election media monitoring in the May 2016 Lebanese municipal elections shows how women political opinion-makers and leaders continue to be weakly represented in the Lebanese audio-visual media. During the launch of the report on 20 October 2016, a discussion […]
Approximately, 250 million roses will be produced for Valentine’s Day globally. Kenya is the lead exporter of rose cut flowers to the European Union with a market share of 38 per cent as of 2015. In 2016, Kenya’s earnings from cut flowers rose 18 per cent to Sh53.3 billion from Sh45.1 billion in the previous […]
Sub-Saharan Africa alone has been more vulnerable to the effects of climate change more than ever. The Intergovernmental panel on climate change predicts that by 2020, crop yields may fall up to 50 per cent and 75-250 million people could be affected by increased water shortages. This poses a significant risk for the generations to […]
On 26 January 2017, Lebanese LGBT activists celebrated a significant victory. For the fourth time in the past eight years, a Lebanese judge ruled that homosexuality was not illegal, applying a liberal interpretation of the Lebanese penal code. The abolition of the legal article in question, no. 534, which criminalizes sexual acts contradictory to the […]
Co-authored with Ferdinand Francken, LEAD programme Coordinator, Ministry of Foreign Affairs The economic perspectives of young people in many developing countries are extremely poor, and unemployment rates staggering high. Even when jobs are available, there is often a mismatch between the skills young people can offer and those required by employers. In some of these countries, […]
Action 24, a Hivos Southern Africa partner under the Green and Inclusive Energy (GIE) programme, launched the Green Discussions Forum in Harare, Zimbabwe. The Green Discussions Forum is targeted at stimulating young people in Zimbabwe to actively take part in promoting the green agenda in Zimbabwe. Action 24 seeks to empower young people on issues […]
As Hivos, we fully believe that freedom of expression and the media is a basic requirement for citizens to stay informed, express an opinion and become civically involved in society. Across the globe, the internet has been growing as a medium of communication, facilitating freedom of expression and economic development. In countries where the internet […]
Maize – Zambia’s most favoured crop – is under attack from alien armyworms. The pest has already invaded more than 10 percent of farms in the country. The army worms are caterpillars that “march” across the landscape in large groups feasting on young plants, leaving devastation in their wake. In Zambia, maize is the primary […]
Open Contracting offers the government of Malawi the biggest hope in winning its war against corruption according to a new report by Hivos Southern Africa and Article 19. The report indicates that governments worldwide spend an estimated USD 9.5 trillion annually on public contracting and calls for the need to commit to open contracting standards […]
As part of the Human Rights Day 2016 commemoration in Zimbabwe, the Dutch Royal Embassy and Hivos Southern Africa invited innovators and human rights practitioners to participate in an Internet and Human Rights Innovation Challenge (IHRC). We asked innovators to share ideas on how to effectively use the internet to advance human rights in Zimbabwe. […]
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can.” Peter-Derrek Hof, Dutch Ambassador for Central America, repeated these words by Martin Luther King to officially launch Nexos, a Human Rights Program in Central America implemented by Hivos for the Embassy of the Netherlands. The initiative aims at raising awareness, strengthening the rule of law, increasing general […]